


Any Old Brooms

by mad_martha



Series: Coming Home [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation between Harry, Ron and Sirius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Old Brooms

**Author's Note:**

> Beginning of a story that was probably intended as a Christmas fic a couple of years ago, although in its own way it works quite well as a vignette. I think I stalled on this one because it would have meant writing about the broom-fair and I didn't feel up to that.

"So - who wants to go to a broom-fair with me on Boxing Day?" Ron asked, sorting through a pile of owls over breakfast.

"Where's it being held?" Harry asked.

"Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch," Ron replied, straight-faced.

Harry and Sirius stared at him.

"It's in Wales," he added helpfully.

"I know where it is!"  Harry tried not to laugh.  "Seriously - where's the fair being held?"

"I told you - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!"

"You don't allow me to swear in the kitchen!" Sirius said to his father.

"He's only saying it because he can," Harry replied.  "Bloody show-off."

"It's near Bangor!" Ron said, and he began to laugh.  He waved a piece of buff-coloured parchment under Harry's nose.  "Read the flyer if you don't believe me!  Broom-fair - Boxing Day - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!  I think the locals call it "Llanfair" ..."

"Hm," Harry said, deeply amused, and he took the flyer.  "I don't believe this - it really _is_ in ... that place.  Well, just outside.  What goes on at broom-fairs?  Besides all the broomwrights of Britain communing like house-elves at a laundry convention?"

"You don't have to come, you know," Ron told him indignantly, and he nipped the flyer from Harry's fingers and passed it to Sirius.  "We go there to meet up, discuss new techniques, look over new designs and models, check out the tool vendors' stalls, have a look at what the independent firms are producing ... that sort of thing.  It can be a nice, relaxing weekend, if I remember not to invite a bunch of philistines along!"

"You poor thing, you're so misunderstood.  Have some more bacon."

"Honestly, I don't know why I bother to ask."  Ron accepted the bacon and added a big dollop of ketchup to it.  "Fancy going, Sirius?"

"Yeah, please - hey Dad, there's going to be a broom race!"

"Should be a laugh," Ron noted.  "It's usually all experimental models made by independent makers, with amateur riders.  You can get some right cock-ups.  Last year one pillock tried fletching a broom with hippogriff feathers instead of tail-twigs."

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"It kept trying to buck the rider off and the braking charms wouldn't work - and when it did finally get rid of its rider, it started attacking everyone who went near it.  What a mess!"  Ron shook his head.  "That sort of stupidity gives the independent broomwrights a bad name."

"I didn't know there were any."

"Oh there's loads, but it's very much the artisan side of the business.  The best of them make custom brooms for racers and professional Quidditch players - it's a popular area for retired masters to make a few galleons and keep their hands in.  Probably what I'll do, when I retire."

Harry glanced at Sirius and winked, and Sirius grinned back at him.  Ron was always talking about what he would do when he retired, despite the fact that he loved his work and wasn't due to retire for at least another forty years anyway.  He particularly liked tinkering and experimenting with brooms, however, for which there was little scope with his present employer.  Harry had discovered over the past couple of years that Ron was well respected in the broom manufacturing business, to the point where Comet and Universal Brooms had each tried to head-hunt him in recent months - and not for the first time apparently.  According to a fellow Cleansweep broomwright, the money they had been offering was fantastic, but Ron had not been interested because the contracts were too restrictive for his liking.  The colleague in question had assumed Ron was being picky or even holding out for a better deal, but Harry - or any of the surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix - could have told him it was more likely an instinctive reaction against being 'trapped' in any way.  Ron liked an escape clause in everything he did, as did Harry and Hermione.

But totally aside from that, Harry knew that Ron liked the little bit of room he had to do broom work on the side - refurbishing older or experimental models, doing odd custom jobs for friends, and so on.  Cleansweep didn't mind, or at least turned a blind eye, provided it didn't in any way threaten their business interests.  The other big companies were not so generous.

"Have you ever considered setting up on your own?" Harry asked him idly.

Ron sniggered.  "Yeah, when I've made my millions!  Doing independent work is an old man's game, Harry - no one ever made more than pocket money on it."

"But why is that?" Sirius asked.  He pushed his plate away and propped his elbows on the table.  "You'd think the best Quidditch players would all want custom-made brooms and pay a fortune, and there's the racers as well.  And what about Quodpot players?  There was an article in _Brooms Today_ about the different needs of the players and a whole bunch of letters to the editor about how Quidditch brooms don't manoeuvre right or have adequate safety features for Quodpot players.  Why doesn't anyone ever set up to make brooms just for them?"

"Because Universal Brooms have a stranglehold on the market in North America," Ron replied, "and Universal relies on the lucrative European Quidditch leagues for advertising revenue.  The Quodpot leagues don't attract nearly as much revenue, so Universal concentrates on Quidditch brooms."

"But a good Quodpot player would surely pay for a custom-built broom," Harry said, growing interested.

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it?  They'd have to pay for it themselves.  Currently they get all their equipment through the teams, as part of their contract."

"You have to be kidding me!  Viktor Krum would never have settled for second best just because it came with his contract!"

Ron shrugged.  "Like I said, it's a different business in North America.  The Quodpot leagues don't have the same universal appeal as Quidditch.  A lot of the players are part-timers, you know, with day jobs.  The teams are nearly all sponsored by Universal and the contracts specify that their players fly Universal brooms."

"But a crafty independent broomwright could work a deal with the teams who aren't on contract ..." Sirius mused.

"Like I said, _when_ I've made my millions," Ron told him, amused.  "And anyone doing it'd have to have balls of iron, because you can bet your left kidney that Universal wouldn't take too kindly to someone muscling in."

Harry thought that a broomwright with a very bold and farsighted financial backer could actually make a market for themselves among the lesser teams, if they were patient enough.  One of the main reasons poorer teams stayed at the bottom of the leagues was because of their cheap and less-than-cutting-edge equipment.  But he accepted that Ron understood the market better than he did and let it go.

"I'm up for it," he said instead, grabbing plates and piling them up.  "Should be interesting."

"I'll get the tickets then," Ron said.

 

 **_~ unfinis ~_ **


End file.
